The Best Tablet for Kids

Published October 5, 2018

Your guide

Andrew Cunningham

The best tablet for your pre-K to middle-school kids is usually the one you aren’t using. But if you need to buy one, we’ve spent hundreds of hours testing tablets, and we think Apple’s 6th-generation iPad has the best combination of ease of use, performance, kid-appropriate app selection, and price. It can do anything your kid might want, from schoolwork to play, and it should still be usable three or four years from now.

Our pick

Offers the best combination of ease of use, performance, app selection, and price, whether you’re an adult or a kid. The 32 GB version is a good buy if you’re mostly streaming media rather than downloading it.

Buying Options

The iPad is a fast, well-made tablet with a great screen, but its app selection just may be its best feature. You can of course use it to download or stream video from just about anywhere, including Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime Video, and YouTube Kids. But Apple’s App Store offers a huge range of educational apps and games for kids of all ages, as well as tons of apps for creating and editing art, video, and audio, which can nurture a child’s creative impulses. An iPad isn’t cheap, but it will last for years—thanks to great hardware and to frequent system and security updates—and the app library means it will stay useful as your kid grows and their interests change.

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Budget pick

It’s slower than an iPad and has a worse screen and a much more limited app selection, but it’s inexpensive, it comes with a kid-proof case and an accidental-damage warranty, and it has good parental controls.

Buying Options

If you want a tablet mostly for kid-focused video, books, and music, Amazon’s Fire HD 8 Kids Edition is less than half the price of an iPad, and it's a decent 8-inch tablet that includes a protective case, a two-year accidental-damage warranty, and a year’s subscription to Amazon FreeTime Unlimited, which offers extensive kid-friendly content. The Fire HD 8 is much slower than an iPad, it’s more difficult to use, and it has far fewer apps and games, but its smaller size may be more comfortable to hold for younger kids, it supports multiple user accounts, and it’s just fine for watching video or using a few apps.

Everything we recommend

Our pick

Offers the best combination of ease of use, performance, app selection, and price, whether you’re an adult or a kid. The 32 GB version is a good buy if you’re mostly streaming media rather than downloading it.

Buying Options

Budget pick

It’s slower than an iPad and has a worse screen and a much more limited app selection, but it’s inexpensive, it comes with a kid-proof case and an accidental-damage warranty, and it has good parental controls.

Should kids use a tablet?

Tablets aren’t just small screens for putting cartoons in front of your kid. They can also be educational tools, toys, and gaming devices. They can help keep your child entertained—and even learning—on long car or plane trips, let your kid use educational apps provided by their school, help improve math and verbal skills, inspire musical and artistic creativity, and much more.

Not everyone wants to give their kid a screen, but many experts agree that above a certain age, screen time isn’t inherently negative as long as you carefully control and supervise it. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends against screen time for kids younger than 18 months except for video chatting, and advises that all screen time for kids age 18 to 24 months happen together with a parent; the organization recommends limiting screen time to an hour per day for kids 2 to 5. But for kids age 6 and up, the AAP thinks longer screen time is okay if you set and stick to time limits, restrict use to “high-quality” programming and apps, and “make sure media does not take the place of adequate sleep, physical activity and other behaviors essential to health.”

Common Sense Media also points out that not all screen time is equal—more passive activities like reading or watching videos are different from communicating with others or playing games. Based on the organization’s usage surveys and the AAP’s recommendations, Common Sense Media encourages distinguishing between these activities and making sure that none of them bring out bad behavior. “If [children are] using high-quality, age-appropriate media; their behavior is positive; and their screen-time activities are balanced with plenty of healthy screen-free ones, there's no need to worry.”

The AAP thinks screen time is okay if you set time limits and stick to “high-quality” content, and if you “make sure media does not take the place of adequate sleep, physical activity and other behaviors essential to health.”

Assuming you want or don’t mind your child using a screen sometimes, obtaining a tablet gives you a device that’s considerably larger than a smartphone—making it easier to use and offering much more space for apps to work with—for less money (often substantially less) than the cost of a phone. A tablet’s larger size also makes it easier to monitor your child’s use, and the lack of cellular service (for the models we recommend) makes it simpler to manage what they’re doing on it. (The New York Times, Wirecutter’s parent company, has a guide to how and when to limit kids’ tech use.)

We looked at over 35 educational apps for tablet and phone recommended by educators, experts, parents, and kids to find the best options for your children.

The best tablet for your kid is your old one

Before you buy a tablet for your kid, ask yourself whether you already own one you don’t use much. If you do, chances are, it will work well enough for your kid. At the other extreme, if you use your tablet regularly, consider buying a new one for yourself and handing down your old one. Win-win!

iPads make especially good hand-me-downs. Apple currently supports every iPad since 2013’s first-generation iPad Air and iPad Mini 2 with regular software updates, so even those older iPads will be compatible with all the apps and games that your kids will want to run, and they should still be quick enough for most apps (though you shouldn’t go out and buy a four- or five-year-old iPad if you don’t already own one). And anything from 2014’s iPad Air 2 forward should be able to handle all but the most demanding kids games.

Amazon’s Fire tablets, on the other hand, aren’t particularly good candidates for hand-me-downs, especially if the tablet is already a couple of years old. Amazon does provide software updates for three or four years after release, but older Fire tablets tend to be significantly slower than what you get in a similar-age iPad, so newer games or apps might not run as well. And Fire tablets—especially the Fire HD 8 that we recommend—are inexpensive enough that it makes more sense to buy a new one than it does to reuse an old one that may frustrate your kid with poor performance or outdated software.

Older hand-me-down smartphones can also be a good alternative to a tablet. Although smaller than even the Fire HD 8 or an iPad mini, larger-screen iPhones and Android phones will run most of the same games, video-streaming apps, and educational apps. And if you use them over Wi-Fi without a SIM card, they won’t add anything to your phone bill.

Our favorite iPad cases

What about buying used or refurbished?

You can try to save some money by buying a used tablet, but you need to be careful. Buying from third-party sellers on sites like Amazon or eBay can be a bit of a crapshoot, and if something goes wrong you don’t have a lot of options. Reputable resellers of used devices, such as Gazelle or Glyde, sell used iPads that have been fully inspected, and both companies offer a return policy (30 days for Gazelle, three days for Glyde). These companies can also be useful if you want to sell an older tablet or phone that you’re no longer using.

Most people are best served by buying the most-recent iPad, though buying a refurbished version of an older iPad can save you some money—and if you buy a refurb directly from Apple, you get a full one-year warranty. In particular, 2017's 5th-generation iPad, when available refurbished, can save you roughly 25 percent over the cost of the current model, and it’s still a reasonably fast tablet with a few years of software updates ahead of it. Just be aware that compared with buying the current (6th-generation) model, you’re giving up some speed, support for Apple’s Pencil stylus, and an extra year or two of software support from Apple and third-party app developers.

Another thing to keep in mind with older iPads and iPhones is storage space, since you can’t add more storage later. In general, 32 GB of storage is tolerable if you don’t want to download and store a ton of videos, but 16 GB iPads and iPhones are a lot less flexible. A 64 GB or 128 GB iPad should give you more than enough space to store enough videos and games for a long car trip or plane ride.

How we picked and tested

Photo: Andrew Cunningham

We generally recommend against specialized “kids” tablets, since they tend to be underpowered and have fewer app options, but kids do need different things from a tablet than adults do. We’ve spent countless hours testing iPads and Android tablets, but to better apply that testing to this guide, we surveyed eight parents on staff to get an idea of what parents (and kids) needed from a tablet. We then took another look at the models we’ve tested for our iPad guide and Android tablet guide to come up with parent-approved recommendations for which tablets to buy and how to shop for them.

Most of our respondents had kids under 8 years old, though we also got responses from parents with kids between 9 and 13. In rough order of importance, these parents told us they want:

a durable tablet that can stand up to normal use and abuse—either because the tablet itself is durable or because it has many options for cases and screen protectors

a wide selection of apps, especially for education, video streaming, gaming, and reading

robust parental controls for limiting what kids can do

a good amount of storage for downloaded games and videos

good enough performance to play relatively demanding games

Most of our respondents indicated that they want a tablet to last for at least three years, and that they would like it to cost around $300 or less (though around a third of respondents said they’d pay more if necessary to get the right device).

Our respondents also told us that cameras for taking photos and video, and for video chatting, are firmly in the nice-but-not-necessary category. They also agreed that they would primarily use a tablet at home, not at school.

We also spent additional testing time (both for this guide and for an upcoming guide to phones for kids) using the parental-control features on the various tablets we considered.

The best all-around tablet: 6th-generation Apple iPad

Photo: Andrew Cunningham

Our pick

Offers the best combination of ease of use, performance, app selection, and price, whether you’re an adult or a kid. The 32 GB version is a good buy if you’re mostly streaming media rather than downloading it.

Buying Options

Apple’s 6th-generation iPad is the best kids tablet for many of the same reasons that it’s the best tablet for most people: It has a huge library of educational, video, gaming, and reading apps; it’s fast and responsive, so kids won’t get frustrated with it; it’s easy to use; and it’s Apple’s most affordable tablet, even if it is toward the upper end of what our surveyed parents said they would want to pay. The biggest downsides are that you can’t create multiple accounts for multiple kids—if they need to share the tablet with anyone, they end up sharing everything—and iOS’s parental controls, although powerful, can be difficult to use. You also need a durable case to protect the iPad’s aluminum and glass body from cracks and dents, but because of the gigantic market for iPad accessories, you have plenty of options.

The best thing about the iPad is its huge app library. If you have a younger child, you’ll appreciate the wide selection of age-appropriate games from developers like Toca Boca, and educational and licensed apps such as the ones from PBS Kids. Older kids will enjoy all the different sources of ebooks, apps with Apple Pencil support for drawing, and video- and audio-creation apps like Apple’s own iMovie and GarageBand. The iOS app store also has tens of thousands of games, many of which debut on iOS or run only on iOS. And, of course, kids of all ages will appreciate video-streaming apps like Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime Video, and YouTube Kids (as well as Apple’s own media store).

Apple’s parental controls, especially on iOS 12, are powerful, giving you a lot of control over what your kid can do and when, while letting them ask your permission if they want more time or want to buy an app or a game. The Screen Time feature can set off-limits hours for iPad usage and time limits on particular apps, and parents on Wirecutter’s staff also said they appreciated the ability to disable the Home button to keep younger kids from accidentally (or purposely) closing their game or app.

But The Washington Post’s Geoffrey Fowler writes that managing iOS 12’s parental-control settings takes a lot of effort, and that the default settings aren’t restrictive enough. Having used these features ourselves, we agree. “Aside from a first-time setup window that covers some Screen Time features, controls can be buried behind half a dozen clicks in settings menus where few venture,” Fowler writes. “Even I couldn’t figure out how to set a daily time limit for a specific app without asking Apple for instructions.”

One drawback of the iPad for smaller kids is its size: Its large screen gives young fingers larger targets to tap on but also makes the tablet more of a challenge to hold. One Wirecutter parent recommended a case with a built-in stand, especially for use on a plane. If size is a concern for you, our budget pick, below, is smaller and lighter.

How much storage do you need?

If your child will mainly use apps and stream video, the 32 GB version of the iPad will likely be fine. But if you’ll be downloading lots of photos, music, and videos to the tablet—say, for long car trips or plane rides where Wi-Fi is unreliable or nonexistent—you should spend $100 more on the 128 GB version. You can’t upgrade the internal storage in an iPad after you buy it, so if you’re concerned about storage, it’s better to err on the side of having too much space rather than too little.

Cheap, durable, and good for video: Amazon Fire HD 8 Kids Edition

Photo: Andrew Cunningham

Budget pick

It’s slower than an iPad and has a worse screen and a much more limited app selection, but it’s inexpensive, it comes with a kid-proof case and an accidental-damage warranty, and it has good parental controls.

Buying Options

Amazon’s Fire HD 8 Kids Edition isn’t as powerful or versatile as even a years-old iPad, but if your child will mainly be watching video and you don’t need as wide a variety of apps, the Fire HD 8 Kids Edition costs less than half as much as Apple’s cheapest iPad. And it has some interesting features of its own: You get a decent 8-inch tablet with a colorful (if bulky) protective case, a two-year “worry-free guarantee” that covers even accidental damage, and a one-year subscription to the extensive Amazon FreeTime Unlimited content library of (as Amazon puts it) “kid-friendly books, movies, TV shows, educational apps, and games.”

Although the Fire HD 8 includes only 16 GB of storage, you can easily expand that using cheap microSD cards. The tablet is also smaller than a full-size iPad, which may make it more comfortable for small hands to hold, and Amazon’s Fire OS supports multiple user accounts to facilitate easier sharing between multiple kids (or kids and adults)—each user gets their own settings and usage restrictions.

The Fire HD 8 works best as a video-streaming device. In addition to Amazon’s extensive video library, you can get Netflix and Hulu, as well as kid-specific apps from Disney, Nickelodeon, and PBS Kids. There are a couple of notable absences: If you have Apple devices, you can’t access your Apple media library on the Fire HD 8, and the lack of any Google apps on Amazon’s tablet platform means no easy access to YouTube Kids (and you’re stuck with the Web interface for standard YouTube, which means unblocking the entire Web browser in the parental controls).

The selection of educational apps and simple games isn’t bad, but it’s nowhere near as varied as what you can get on an iPad. Although the one-year FreeTime Unlimited subscription does give you access to most apps at no additional charge, you’ll have to pay once that subscription expires: Amazon Prime subscribers pay $3 a month per child or $7 a month for a family plan that covers up to four kids, while non–Prime members pay $5 a month per child or $10 per month for the family plan. It’s a good deal if your kid is always trying new apps, games, videos, and books—though as we mentioned, the selection isn’t huge—but it may not be worth the cost if they’re using the tablet just as a screen for watching Netflix.

One area where the Fire HD 8 bests Apple’s tablets is in parental controls. Amazon’s Fire OS offers not just parental-control options but also a completely different user interface for child accounts that removes ads and puts the focus on Amazon-vetted books, apps, and games based on the age and gender of the child using the tablet. The Washington Post’s Geoffrey Fowler praises Amazon’s default settings on its Kids Edition tablet, which he says create less work for parents than Apple’s similar feature: Apps running in a child’s account don’t send location data to those apps’ developers, the Alexa voice assistant is disabled, and age-based content filters are automatically enabled. You can even use time restrictions to reward kids—for example, letting them play games only after they’ve spent a certain amount of time reading or using educational apps.

The competition

Apple’s iPad Pro tablets are faster and have better screens and cameras than the 6th-generation iPad, but those aren’t features that kids would notice or care about. The iPad Pro models are also at least twice as expensive as the 6th-generation iPad, significantly more money than any of the parents we surveyed would want to pay for a child’s tablet. They’re nice, but they’re overkill.

The Apple iPad mini 4 might be tempting because of its smaller size and 128 GB of storage. But Apple last updated it more than three years ago, which means it’s significantly slower than the 6th-generation iPad and it won’t receive new software updates for as long, but it’s roughly the same price as our pick. If Apple ever updates the hardware, we might change our assessment, but for now the 6th-generation iPad gives you much more for your money.

Amazon also sells Kids Edition versions of its two other Fire tablets: The Fire 7 Kids Edition and Fire HD 10 Kids Edition tablets each include the same kidproof case, two-year warranty, and FreeTime Unlimited subscriptions as the Fire HD 8. But we don’t like either of these tablets as much as the Fire HD 8. The Fire 7 is a bit cheaper, but it’s slower and equipped with a noticeably less colorful, lower-resolution screen, while the Fire HD 10 costs significantly more without offering many benefits beyond a larger screen.

You can find plenty of Android tablets out there, but we don’t think you should buy any of them for your kids over an iPad or a Fire tablet. Although they run most of the same games and video-streaming apps as the Fire HD 8, the devices themselves aren’t available in kid-specific editions with similar perks. And to get a really good Android tablet, you have to spend at least as much as it costs to get an iPad, which is faster and has a larger library of apps.

We haven’t tested educational tablets sold specifically for younger kids, such as LeapFrog’s series of tablets. These devices are designed to be durable and have app catalogs specifically curated for kids, but they can cost roughly as much as our Fire HD pick while offering inferior screens and slower processors that may frustrate kids and parents when using some apps. More important, their selection of apps is limited next to what Apple and Amazon offer, focusing mostly on educational apps for kids age 7 and younger. Many of these apps are advertised as “educator approved,” but if your kid gets bored with them or outgrows them, you don’t have Apple or Amazon’s variety of popular games, video-streaming apps, or even educational apps for older kids that can extend the tablet’s usefulness.